Girl Talk performs for Rock HallGregg Gillis, the mix master who performs under the alias Girl Talk, performed at Public Auditorium. Gilliis was there as part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's festivities leading up to next weekend when the 2012 Inductions will be held in Cleveland.

In a week, Cleveland's Public Auditorium will be awash in nostalgia and the ghosts of rock 'n' roll's past, as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its 2012 class of inductees in Cleveland. But Saturday night, it played host to a wild, super-energized and ultra-modern dance party courtesy of Gregg Gillis, the cutting-edge mixmaster who performs as Girl Talk.

Presented as part of the Rock Hall's induction festivities, the Girl Talk concert was a blissed-out, 90-minute modernist mashup of electronic music, rock, hip-hop, pop, old-school R&B and more, with Gillis splicing samples and snippets of tunes into songs on the fly. The spectacle -- complete with light show, video wall, confetti, balloons, flying toilet paper and silly string -- was creative and thrilling, a full-blown arena-rock show in the best sense of that term. And the sold-out crowd -- mostly twentysomethings dressed in colorful club attire -- greeted it with delirious joy.

Gillis, a 2004 graduate of Case Western Reserve University, served up live vamps on mashups collected in albums ranging from 2006's "Night Ripper" to 2010's "All Day." He uses a blizzard of samples -- wildly weaving snippets of songs from the Ramones, Tag Team, Michael Jackson, Black Sabbath, Ludacris, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, Flo-Rida, Twisted Sister, Sly and the Family Stone and a myriad of others.

The floor at Public Auditorium was a non-stop gyrating mass, as fans danced to mashup's like "Oh No" (a pinch of Black Sabbath with a little Ludacris), "Let It Out (some Jay-Z, spiced with E.L.O), "Shut the Club Down" (Avril Lavigne meets Dolla) and more.

Rock Hall president and CEO Terry Stewart, jamming near the front of the stage most of the evening, said he wants to increase electronic music's profile at the museum, with more concerts and exhibits. "Guys like Girl Talk and Deadmau5 are the new rock stars," he said. "It's really gratifying to see this kind of show in a space like Public Auditorium."

Follow Us

cleveland.com is powered by Plain Dealer Publishing Co. and Northeast Ohio Media Group. All rights reserved (About Us).The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Northeast Ohio Media Group LLC.